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Rolling admissions phase is now in motion at Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy which means that all application deadlines have passed. Learn how one student gained an opportunity for independence and an early start at the school by applying during this phase.

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Broadreach Global Educational Adventures

Annaliese spent her summer at the beach, but it was anything but typical--Unless your typical summer comes with 15 foot bull sharks

Roughly half of all known species depend on the ocean, and with 95% of our oceans still yet to be explored, it is clear that marine biologist still have a lot of discovering to do. Annaliese Everett first came to HPA, eager to learn more about marine biology. She participated in the HPA turtle tagging program, got involved with Reef Teach in Puako, and is starting a club aimed at raising awareness and money to protect our ocean ecosystem. However, Annalise's interests in marine biology go beyond HPA. She has traveled to Fiji and the Caribbean, to participate in Broadreach's marine biology programs.

The summer before her junior year, Annaliese traveled to the Caribbean where she joined 15 other people to live and learn of a marine catamaran for two weeks. During this trip, she got multiple SCUBA certifications, learned the basics of Marine Biology, and participated in the REEF fish survey project, an ongoing project which involved tallying the number and types of fish they encountered while diving.

During her first trip with Braodreach, Annaliese explained that the most valuable thing that she gained was more self-awareness about how her actions can affect ocean. Since returning, she explains that she has, “been more aware of the type of fish I eat, and what I choose to eat and where its from”. Even when eating out, Annaliese says she always checks to make sure that she is choosing to eat seafood sustainably, sometimes even chatting with the chef about where they are buying their fish, and telling them about some of the things she learned during her trip

“There’s just so much we can’t fathom at this point so even if something does seems scary like sharks or who knows what, it can turn out to be a lot more interesting than one might think”.

Equipped with her SCUBA certification, this past summer, Annaliese traveled to Fiji for four weeks. She and a group of high school students stayed on the island of Benga, and participated in 20 dives with five different types of sharks. After getting acclimated with diving with these powerful predators, Annaliese started her own research paper about their feeding habits of Bull Sharks. She observed that bull sharks have a feeding hierarchy, dictating how the sharks approach the food they are eating. For Annaliese being able to come up with her own research question, and collect her data first hand was the most exciting part of the trip, and confirmed her desires to become a marine biologist.

Despite having to share the waters with 15 foot, bull sharks, white black and silver tip reef sharks, as well as nurse sharks, Annaliese said that she never felt unsafe. “There’s just so much we can’t fathom at this point so even if something does seems scary like sharks or who knows what, it can turn out to be a lot more interesting than one might think”. For Annaliese this trip is just the start of her study of sharks. She explains that as a marine biologist, she hopes to focus on studying sharks. “People hear shark and they want to get out of the water, instead of actually thinking is this shark going for me, or is it going for food below me”, she wants to learn more about this powerful and misunderstood apex predator.

Additional Information

Cost: 4,000-8,000Duration: 2-5 weeksLocation: Programs all over the worldHighlights: Earn college credits and community service hours, work with professionals in their field, explore the culture from countries all over the worldWebsite: http://www.gobroadreach.com

Hampshire College Studies in Mathematics

AdvancedGeometry ain't easy, but Bruce Kim took it a step further learning about geometry on a sphere and hyperbolic plane.

I remember hiking up Lailai on the first day back from school when I asked Bruce Kim, what he had done over the summer. With a big smile, he replied, I went to math program. When I asked him what he did, he replied math: eight hours of math a day for six weeks. Bruce is one of the most passionate people I know, and he continued to follow his passions this summer by traveling to Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. There he was able to learn the basics of advanced mathematics.

Bruce started to get interested in math in elementary school. “When I went to Canada I definitely excelled at it, so that helped me like math more”. However, he says that the first moment that he really began to become interested was when he read a book about Euler’s equation. “Though I never understood how the equation came to be, until the end of AP calculus BC, even though I did not know how it was derived, it looked really cool. That equation still amazes me, it looks beautiful to me”

Bruce liked that the camp allowed him to meet other students who loved math. “I thought that I was passionate at math, but I found other people who were more passionate, and more experienced and knowledgeable with math than me”. Bruce said that he was surprised that many of the students, especially many of them who were younger than him had a lot more experience and knowledge with many of the topics that were discussed during the program. “Not that I was discouraged, but I think I had more experience about what it would feel like to do this in college, and what I could be expecting, and what I should be practicing more”

In college, Bruce explains that math classes are a very different from the math that many of us are used to in school. “This was the first opportunity I got to see what college math looks like with more axioms and more proofs”. Bruce says that he wants to major in mathematics, although he is not quite sure what area he wants to go into. “Going into the math program, I thought I would get a better idea of what math, what specific area of math I liked. But since I got overwhelmed with so many different topics, and most of them were really cool, I can’t really say which one was my favorite”. He isn’t quite sure what career he wants to go into, explaining that there are many fields you can go into with a math degree.

Additional Information

Cost: 3,917Duration: Six Weeks starting in early JulyLocation: Hampshire College, Amherst MassachusettsHighlights: Learn the basics of number theory, group theory and combinatorics, choose a concentration in one of three areas: Geometry, probability and combinatorics, meet people passionate about the study of mathematics, learn what a college math course will be likeWebsite: http://www.hcssim.org/student-testimonials.html